Believe it or not, it’s Spring! If you look at a calendar, you will know I’m not lying. In fact, it’s been Spring for over a month, and the pictures on your April calendar probably show things like fields of green grass and budding flowers, robins dangling worms from their beaks, and greedy squirrels gorging themselves on bird feeders. Another sure sign is the number of dead rabbits on the roadside, those speedy creatures that are so hell-bent on practicing their reproductive rights they forget to look before crossing.

There are other signs. You might hear a cardinal singing out your window on the weekend when you’re trying to sleep late. It’s not so much a song as the chant of an idiot who knows three words and repeats them to infinity. Other birds, the migrating sort, sing some sad country song about why they should sell their property here and move South permanently.

Beaky Buzzard and his clan are back. They circle the skies waiting for dead deer and fish to thaw enough so that they can dive in. Also, a mystical phenomenon has come upon us this Easter: Hundreds of giant cocoons of wooly mammoths have lined up along the lake beaches, perhaps evidence of a genetically engineered resurrection.

“April is the cruelest month / breeding lilacs out of the dead earth, mixing / memory with desire” wrote T.S. Eliot. I’m not sure what T.S.’ initials stand for – probably something like Terribly Sad. B.T.W., there are other famous poets who use initials in lieu of their full names. E.E. Cummings wrote about a place where pretty people float around in balloons and flowers pick themselves. Such playful, child-like imagery! I wonder if E.E. stands for Elmo and Ernie?

Actually, there is quite a list of deep thinkers who use just their initials: J.R.R. Tolkien, S.E. Hinton, J.K. Rowling, J.P. Morgan, Z.Z. Top, M.G. Krebs, A.C.D.C. Perhaps the greatest was R.L. Frost (out of respect for Robert, I googled him to find his middle name, which is Lee). He’s the one who reminds us of the importance of putting up walls so we don’t murder our neighbors, and to take the road nobody else takes so that we are sure to get lost in the woods and be eaten by a bear. Regarding youth and beauty, he tells us that “nothing gold can stay;” therefore we ought to be spontaneous and seize the day, kind of like rabbits.

A friend once told me April is like the perp in an abusive relationship. Akin to mother nature, April is the female (assuming that word still exists) and he (male) is the unfortunate other, the victim of terrible storms of ice, rain and wind. My friend (I don’t name him because he is an overly sensitive sap, and a miserly cuckold to boot!) compares April’s behavior to something like foreplay. The sun breaking from behind clouds like a sudden smile. The warm breeze, a kiss. Flowery spring dresses signaling “come hither, big fella!”

Then, bam! The sun disappears behind flying black curtains, the breeze turns into a cold, biting wind, and April is scowling, wrapped up in a heavy blanket of fresh snow. And you suddenly realize that she/they/thou/whatever is someone you wish you had never met. It’s the anniversary of the worst choice you ever made, and even if it means giving up 1/12th of your future life, you would gladly make it disappear!

But it’s not as bad as my loser friend makes it out to be. April has many excellent qualities. There is more daylight, and if you use your imagination, the snowflakes on a dark day can seem like butterflies in a black and white photo.

See HOWARD,

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The temperature will never get lower than 15 degrees, and there’s not much snow. You are now free to put away your thermal underwear.

Here is my recommendation: If the wind dies down to less than 25 mph, find a patch of earth somewhere. Clear the snow and put your ear to the ground, kind of like the native guides in the old movies. You can hear the sounds of new life – the roots of trees talking to each other, arguing whether or not to wake up and face the lousy weather; the mustering of worms as they ascend to stretch themselves across sidewalks and driveways, to be sacrificed there, plucked up by birds or smashed by tires or cooked by the sun, their legacy scrawled like a poem on a concrete tablet. You might also hear hydraulic hammers of city workers fixing potholes.

So, in the words of the great A.A. Milne as expressed through his gentle bear, Winnie the Pooh: “It never hurts to keep looking for sunshine.”

Pete Howard, a musician, writer, teacher, and painter, lives in Dunkirk.